Chile Flies the Flag for Sustainability

BY JOAQUÍN HIDALGO | JUNE 01, 2022

In a world working hard to reduce the effects of global warming caused by human activity, every little bit helps. It doesn’t matter whether action is taken in economic powerhouses such as China or the USA, or somewhere down at the southern edge of the world like Chile. In this long, skinny country at the bottom of South America, where green hydrogen and renewables are viable medium-term options for powering the country, the wine industry is taking responsibility and playing its part.

A few statistics offer a clearer picture of its efforts. Eighty percent of the wine exported by Chile is certified as sustainable. That’s not an inconsiderable number. Especially if you bear in mind that seven out of every ten bottles produced in the country are opened overseas, and Chile is the fourth largest exporter in the world. The fact that four fifths of sales on that scale are sustainable is excellent news, setting a high bar for others to follow.

But sustainability is a broad concept; in a drinker’s imagination it might encompass everything from protecting the environment, to being a responsible member of the community, respecting biodiversity or even production and trade practices that guarantee the rights of women and children. But, wine producers in Chile take all this into account and more. In fact, their definition is massively ambitious: “A sustainable wine is one produced in such a way that it ensures that future generations will be able to make it too,” says Elena Carretero, the Head of Sustainability at Viña Santa Rita. Her phrase will be echoed by almost everyone you talk to.

On the southern edge of Itata, Miguel Torres bought a vineyard of extremely old País vines. In this area, regular rainfall allows for dry farming and the vineyards grow through the forest. 

This sense of common purpose has been developing for several years in the vineyards. It’s a perfect example of cultural change inspired by shifting attitudes. “In 2008, some of the large wineries,” says Patricio Parra, who is in charge of the Sustainability Code at Wines of Chile, “started to consider the need to work on sustainable terms, partly because some of the buyers, such as Norway and Canada monopoly’s, were asking for information in that area and partly because wine talks about its place of origin like few other products.” In a country focused on exports, the fact that the markets were starting to make such requirements became a pressing issue.

But the process is more interesting than just a response to market demands. It’s really more about cultural change. Bárbara Wolff, who oversaw this transformation at the VSPT(Viña San Pedro Tarapacá) group, the second largest wine company in Chile, offers another perspective: “We were the ones who started to think about the wine landscape, the terroir, as a significant factor in shaping the wine, and so we realized that the landscape had value as well.” This set in motion a series of processes that eventually ran like clockwork.

In 2010, the first Sustainability Code was written – inspired in part by the California Wine Growing Alliance and measures taken in New Zealand. The following year, 2011, the code started to be applied, the first of its kind in the region. Just a decade later, 82 wineries have certified their practices, while the original code has been revised four times. It covers the vineyard, agricultural practices, the winery and winemaking and social and community responsibility. The latest addition, in 2020, applied to the tourism sector. It’s voluntary and any winery in Chile can be certified, but only those that meet at least 95% of its core requirements can be officially declared sustainable.

Wine: The Exception to the Rule

With a history and economy that has mostly been focused on the mining industry, Chile has a strong extractivist background. This is also true of its forestry and fishing industries. Even the wine business has historically been oriented toward exporting to foreign markets. But, in contrast with these other activities, wine decided to make the change to sustainability early.

“In our case,” says Andrea León at Lapostolle, “we were already implementing organic and biodynamic practices in 2001. At one point in the late 2000s, we decided to stop obtaining certification until the present code was completed.” Their neighbors Viña Emiliana were also pioneers in biodynamic practices in Colchagua, consistently implementing them since 1998. This marked the beginning of a change in paradigm in the approach to viticulture, the start of a long-term investment. One in which protecting the environment is part of a sustainable culture that speaks to some of the biggest challenges we’re facing today, far beyond the wine sector. Diego Rivera at Viña Garcés Silva, puts it plainly: “We’ve taken sustainable certification very personally, it’s much more than a check list, we do it out of respect for nature and because it has helped us to look closer at what we do and how we work in far greater detail.”

Certifications notwithstanding, at Chilean wineries today there is a deep-rooted, working awareness that encompasses several different areas: water management, restoration of biodiversity and native forests, energy saving and reduction of carbon emissions, to name just a few.   

Viña Ventisquero is experimenting with dry-farming Syrah, Garnacha, Cinsault and Mourvèdre vines at the top of the Apalta ridge. In the background, there is native forest land owned by Ventisquero and Lapostolle.

Water: The Big Challenge

The water crisis that has hit Chile in the past decade has only made clearer just how scarce the resource is. A producer like Concha y Toro, for example, who has 11.5 thousand hectares under vine, began in 2000 to convert their irrigation to the drip method, and today all their vines are watered this way. It was a massive investment made with a view to improve the sustainability of their wines.